Can't Live Without You
by Lipstick and Cleats
Summary: Randy Orton and Brooke Leland are two poisonous elements, destined to create perfect chemistry, or spontaneously combust. Either way, it's bound to be a hell of a ride.
1. Chapter 1

**CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU**

"My God. Could this place get any nastier?"

Turning to the door, Randy Orton grimaced. The last thing he needed was to hear her whiney little voice. "What do you want?"

Without a real invitation, Brooke Leland let herself into the cluttered apartment and trailed her manicured finger over the back of the couch. "What? No kiss?" she asked, her brown eyes wide as she watched him, feigning innocence.

"I thought I took your key away," he spat, setting his cereal bowl on the end table next to the couch before he stood, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

Brooke shrugged and kept walking toward the bathroom. "You gave it back," she called over her shoulder. With the door open, she dropped her form-fitting jeans to her ankles and sat on the toilet. "So clearly you haven't been using your off-time to clean."

He was pretty sure that his anger management counselor wouldn't condone the thoughts running through his head. The judicial system probably wouldn't condone the things he wanted to do with her at the moment. And he was sure that his mother would not condone the things he was about to say.

Walking past the bathroom without so much as a glance inside, Randy moved toward the refrigerator and helped himself to a beer. They had talked about using alcohol as a help tool during his therapy. He wasn't supposed to be using any substance to make confrontation easier. But desparate times called for desparate measures, and if anything reaked of desparation, it was Brooke Leland.

For more than three years, she had been his partner in crime. His passion and his fury. His face and his heel. She was his muse, for better, but more often, for worse. She had offered him his first joint, gotten him into his first fight, and spent his first night in jail with him.

He hated her more than he had ever hated anyone. But he couldn't seem to stay away. Because for all of the headaches and the pain and the irritation she provided, there was something addictive about Brooke Leland.

The flush of the toilet was followed by a slam of the bathroom door. When Randy turned, Brooke was standing at the end of the kitchen island, her hands on her hips. "I take the time out of my busy schedule to come all the way over here and you're just gonna ignore me? What the fuck is that about, Orton?"

Rolling his eyes, Randy turned and matched her pose with his hands on his hips. "First of all," he started, holding her gaze with a steady one of his own. "You live two blocks over. And I don't know what this bull shit about a busy schedule is. You don't have a fucking job, Brooke."

She huffed as though she was about to throw a tantrum, and then shrugged. "I have a job, Orton," she corrected. "I run a lucrative business out of my home."

"Right," he nodded sarcastically. "I forgot about the little webcam thing."

If there was anything that set Brooke off, it was the insinuation that her website was not a real job. "That 'little webcam thing' happened to net me over three hundred grand last year, smartass," she corrected, helping herself to a beer from the fridge. "Seriously, dude," she perused the dishes in the sink. "You need to get a maid."

"Would you lay off the fucking mess?" Randy finally snapped. "Jesus Christ! I haven't been through enough lately? I can't get thirty seconds of rest in my own fucking home?"

His outburst made Brooke laugh, her ruby red lips parting as she tilted her head back. "You're such a drama queen," she sighed, moving back into the living room.

When he joined her, she was splayed against his couch, her puma-clad feet propped on the coffee table. "Get your feet off the table. Jesus! Were you born in a barn?"

Brooke withdrew her feet and sat up, allowing him room to flop next to her. "Callin' the good Lord's name a lot today, Orton. What happened? You find some religion at Bad Mood camp?"

He smiled and leaned forward, pulling on the hidden drawer under the coffee table. Withdrawing a small wooden box, he took rolling papers and a baggie and laid them out. "Religion doesn't really suit me," he reminded her, sprinkling a generous amount of pot down the middle of the paper.

"What does suit you?" Brooke asked coyly, leaning close to him as he moved the paper toward his lips. Gripping his wrist, she guided the joint to her own mouth and licked it seductively.

Randy shook the shiver running down his spine as he rolled the cigarette carefully and waited for her to light it. "What do you think?" he challenged, holding the joint between his fingers as he passed it to her.

Brushing his fingers with her own, Brooke smiled and took a long drag, puffing her lips as she held the smoke. Their eyes held each other's gaze, dancing an intimate tango that no one could ever hope to figure out. As she parted her lips, a thick cloud of smoke escaping the confines of her mouth. "I think it's been too fucking long."

During his two months in Georgia, he had resolved to cut her out of his life. He had too many dreams that hadn't come true yet, too much left to accomplish. She was his albatross. He had told his counselor that he knew Brooke would be the death of everything he had envisioned for himself.

But even recalling all of that couldn't stop him from grabbing an ashtray from the coffee table and taking her hand, leading her toward the bedroom. If it was true - if loving her killed him - at least he knew he would die exhausted and satisfied.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't really fucking care, Shane," Brooke's harsh voice woke Randy from a pleasant dream. Rolling over, he saw her leaning against his headboard, exposed from the waist up as her face twisted in frustration at what she was being told on the other end of the phone.

"I'm getting food. Want any?" he asked, squinting against the afternoon sunlight as he stood from the bed and stretched.

Brooke didn't even glance his way, just held up a hand to silence him. "Do you realize what a breach of contract suit would do to you? I am so not playing right now, you little brat. You tell Daddy that you have somewhere to be and you get your naked ass to the studio. Is that clear?"

Randy just rolled his eyes as she snapped the phone shut and threw it across the room. "One of your whores getting out of line?"

She rolled out of the bed and searched the floor for her clothes. "This is what I get for working with kids," she spat, moving quickly around the room, pulling her clothes on quickly. "Oh, no, Brooke, I promise," she mocked the young woman she had just been talking to. "Living at home won't affect my job in the least."

Grabbing her arms, Randy stopped her. "Hey," he smiled slightly. "Why don't you just call somebody else in and stick around for a little while?"

But Brooke just scoffed. "Do you have any idea how many horny idiots are paying top dollar to watch an eighteen-year-old cheerleader play with a seven inch da-glo dildo?"

The absurdity of the question cause Randy to laugh before he could stop himself. When Brooke jerked her arm away, she rolled his eyes. "Come on, Brooke. Think about what you just said. You can't possibly take this job seriously."

But she did. Brooke took her website extremely seriously. She ran it with the tenacity and administrative percision that any other CEO did, and while she realized that internet porn was not exactly the most credible venture, she had more than enough money to prove that success didn't have to be wholesome.

While her personal life had always been a train wreck, her business was meticulous and carefully-planned. She never revealed her own identity, and all of her performers used stage names. The studio, located in the basement of her house, was completely void of any distinguishing marks, and she routed everything through a remote server that was virtually untraceable.

Sure, she pimped young women for unseemly amounts of cash. But she wasn't exactly losing sleep over it, and it pissed her off when anyone else did, especially Randy.

"Like what I do is so different than what you do." Randy scoffed. "Please, Orton. You strip down to your panties and and roll around with other narly-naked, sweaty men. At least I know better than to put myself on screen."

He rolled his eyes and searched the floor for his track pants. "The fact that you would even consider yourself in the same league with me," he started, realizing even as he said the words, how she would perceive them.

"I'm out of your league? I'm out of your fucking league? Son, you're lucky I even gave your fake-and-baked ass a second look back in the day. The mere fact that I continue to put up with your bull shit on a semi-regular basis is a fucking mercy act, at best." Her face turned red as her voice began to rise. "Ya know, I don't know why I waste my fucking time with you and your holier-than-thou attitude."

Randy found his own temperature rising as she continued to rant. "Oh, you put up with my bull shit? MY bull shit?" He grabbed her shoulders, holding her tightly even as she cringed against his fingers. "If anyone spews bull shit like candy, it's you, Brooke," he accused. "And you put up with it for the same damn reason I do." Tossing her onto the bed, he glared wickedly. "You put your little girls out there to show all the lonely, horny men in the world what every woman wants, but when it comes right down to it," he smirked a cocky grin, "there's only one dick that does it for you."

Regaining her composure, Brooke stood and shoveled a handful of blonde hair from her face. "You're right about one thing, Orton," she said as calmly as possible. "You are definitely one big dick."

Brushing past him, she walked down the stairs and toward the front door, leaving Randy to watch her angrily. It didn't seem to matter how much time had passed, the formula was always the same. They would argue like children, flirt like teenagers, fuck like crazy, and then fight like bitter enemies.

As she headed into the kitchen one last time, she shook her head. They were like a bad high school chemistry experiment, complete with plenty of combustible elements. Two strong-willed, self-centered personalities, some expensive pot, lots of steamy sex, and fights that would make professional boxers run for cover. When mixed, an explosion was inevitable.

Reaching her hand into the cookie jar, Brooke withdrew a wad of cash and thumbed through it. Satisfied, she tucked it into her back pocket and left the house. If he wanted to treat her like a whore, she would take payment like one. Maybe, if he decided to admit that he was an A+ asshole, there would still be hope for them. Until then, she would go back to her 'little webcam thing' and forget he ever existed.

Randy watched from the top of the stairs as she sauntered out with the cash he had planted for her. It was the furthest thing from a real relationship, but it worked for them. And try as they might to deny it, fight it, or shut it out, he knew it wasn't going to stop any time soon.


End file.
